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Marketing Agency of the Month Transitioning to big In five years, Senn Dunn grows from boutique to diverse financial services firm By Dennis H. Pillsbury
Senn, Dunn, Marsh & Roland, LLC, has been a fixture in Greensboro, North Carolina, since 1927, when it began handling the insurance needs of local businesses and residents in a city that already showed signs of strong growth. In the same year Senn Dunn was founded, Babe Ruth set a homerun record with 60, “Lucky Lindy” made the first non-stop trans-Atlantic flight, and Greensboro was selected as the site for the Triad’s airport. The agency was a boutique, commercial lines operation that provided its owners with a nice living and offered excellent service to its customers in the area. However, it remained small, relying mostly on the expansion of the surrounding area to fuel its own growth. When the agency was perpetuated to a new group of younger owners in the late ’80s and ’90s, a change began that transitioned the agency “from a boutique agency to a diverse financial services organization,” according to Chairman Larry Roland, CPCU, ARM, CIC. The new group of owners decided to take a chance: to bring in new talent and expand the ownership. Additionally, the agency would diversify into new lines of business and services. Larry admits that “there were some slim years, but we kept investing in people, automation, and opportunities. We’ve learned to take risks. We recognize that we must be willing to forgive failure and jointly accept the outcome. Luckily, we haven’t had to do that in a while.”
So far, results have been excellent. The agency was “smaller in 2000 with about $4.3 million in revenue and 40 people,” says Tim Ward, CPCU, CIC, executive vice president and personal lines manager. “But we really began to realize the gains from our investment in people as we started an explosive growth period that continues today. We expect to finish 2005 with $14 million in revenue and more than 90 people in our headquarters in Greensboro and branch office in High Point. And that represents mostly internal growth. We made only three small purchases in that period.” Ward continues, “One of our first steps in moving forward was finding out who we were in the eyes of our clients. We hired a branding agency to help us update our image so that we would be ready to move forward by relying on our real strengths rather than our own perceptions of what our strengths were. The branding agency surveyed 50 clients by phone, asking them who handled their insurance and why. The answer was always that Senn Dunn wrote their insurance and when asked why they stayed with Senn Dunn, the answer invariably was, ‘If there’s ever a problem, they’ll handle it.’ “We knew that Senn, Dunn, Marsh & Roland didn’t exactly trip lightly off of people’s tongues. By the same token, we knew that changing the name meant we would have to ask Larry Roland to take his name off the door. He was big enough to say, ‘Go ahead.’ So we started doing business as Senn Dunn and added our trademarked tagline, ‘we’ll handle it®.’
Larry admits that it was difficult to see his name removed from the building. “My name had been on the agency for 25 years. At the same time, we needed a name that would last to eternity because that’s our long-term strategy—to remain an independent agency for just that long. One of the strengths of this agency has always been its ownership. The owners have always put the agency first. We always believed that we would do very well until a greedy person took charge and, fortunately, that has not happened. Our philosophy is to build a bigger agency with more owners so that each one has a smaller piece of a much bigger pie. No owner ever stood in the way of doing the right thing.” Larry, who has been there long enough to see every one of the 90-plus people join the firm, continues, “We’re a healthier firm that is determined to find the right people and once they’re in place, then they look to find even better people who can be their replacements when they retire. Our growth has made it possible for us to attract good people. They want to be part of Senn Dunn.” “One of the things that makes us special is our ability to find and recruit the right people,” says Tim Templeton, CPCU, senior vice president and commercial lines manager. “We’ve had a lot of fun. Adding new young people to the team energizes everyone. We don’t hire people right out of college,” he explains. “Instead, we look for people who are working in other industries but want a chance to be entrepreneurial. We can teach them insurance.”
One of the success stories is Jay Haldeman, who joined the agency from IBM. “He liked sales but wanted unlimited potential,” Templeton says. “We set up a mentoring program for him and, within four years, he was producing more than $600,000 in revenue. After four-and-a-half years, he became a partner.” Two other producers came from the banking industry. Another new partner, John Eddleman, is a producer in the employees benefits division, which was formed five years ago by Joe Hughes. Prior to the decision to diversify and become a complete financial services firm, Senn Dunn had been referring benefits business to Joe. When the agency decided it wanted to create an employee benefits division within the agency, Senn Dunn made Joe the proverbial offer that he couldn’t refuse. “Joe’s best skill is recruiting,” Templeton says. “He brought John into the firm and mentored him to the point where he is now contributing $750,000 in revenue.” Templeton continues, “We’re embarrassed if someone doesn’t make it, so we use a customized profile test that compares the candidate’s personality to those qualities that have made our current employees successful. We also provide mentors for each of our new hires so they have the best opportunity to succeed. Scott Shepherd, one of our most recent hires, came to us from the banking industry. Larry Roland and our in-house marketing staff helped coach him. Scott has already produced more than $330,000 in new revenue from his contacts.” T. Gray McCaskill, CPCU, CLU, president, elaborates, “We try to hire team players that fit in with our culture. We have an enthusiastic staff with a can-do attitude at all levels. We’ve really built an amazing team. When I joined the agency in 1985, I was the 10th person in the firm. Today, we have 93 people and I’m still just as confident that I can send any of our people to my best client without worrying.” Gray continues, “Our sales contests encourage the team atmosphere. The objective is to get people to open up and share contacts. Last year, we did a referral-only contest where producers had to refer business to another department. Each producer had to refer $36,000 in revenue, and yardsticks were taped to every door marking off each of the 36 inches to the goal. We did just under $1.2 million in new revenue, all from current clients. As a bonus, 10% of that came right off the top and was divided equally among the staff. “This year, Randy Taylor from Benefits suggested a golf theme for our sales contest where each producer needs to bring in new or referred business totaling $72,000 in revenue for a par round of 72 to get into the clubhouse. Each producer who succeeds gets to wear a green jacket at the Monday morning sales meeting. We’re on target to reach our goal of $2 million in new revenue by the end of the year.”
Gray concludes, “We expect and hope that all producers will qualify to become an owner. We currently have 14 owners ranging in age from 57 down to 33. Three are female and two of the owners are not producers—the manager of opera-tions and the head of the commercial marketing department.” Tim Ward adds, “There’s nothing on Wall Street that provides as good a return as growing Senn Dunn. And we communicate that to our people on a regular basis. Communication is one of the hallmarks of our agency. Every Monday morning, meetings start at 8:00, beginning with our Red Team, the 14 owners. The Blue Team, which includes all the producers plus their immediate support, meets at 8:30. There’s a lot of joking and ribbing, as everybody gets up to speed on the progress of the sales contest and each producer’s prospects. We’ve even had some clients come to the meeting to learn about our sales culture. “After that, department meetings are staggered throughout the day. We have 14 people at the personal lines department meeting and I try to make sure everyone is informed. It’s really important that we keep these lines of communication open, especially since we have new people coming in pretty regularly and we want to make them feel that they’re part of the team right away. This year, during one eight-week period, we had a new employee join us every week.” The White Team is the management team, which includes Larry Roland, Gray McCaskill, Tim Ward and Tim Templeton, and they meet regularly to discuss the results of other meetings and to make certain the agency remains on track.
Larry Roland points out that the four have “interests and skills that are complementary. We each have natural preferences. I’m the spiritual leader and visionary. Gray is the dealmaker who finds others from outside who help us increase our value. Tim Ward is our rainmaker. Tim Templeton is our hope for the future. We appreciate the perspective each brings to the agency and enjoy working together.” Tim Ward continues, “The administration department has been critical. We had to manage better so that it wasn’t a system where the latest hire got to do all the mundane jobs. Joe Wheeless, who joined us from another agency where he had won ‘N.C. Young Agent of the Year,’ found that administration was really his strength and what he wanted to do with his career. He was able to recognize that one person’s ‘humdrum job’ is another person’s forte. He’s skilled at aligning the right people with the right jobs so people enjoy what they do here. The support people have the window offices, while the producers, who are supposed to be outside producing, have the interior offices. We’re very proud that, thanks to our administrative team, we’ve been recognized as one of the best places to work in the area for three of the last five years. “Everybody is really happy to be at work, and that doesn’t happen by accident. We have agency luncheons, where an employee is recognized with a crackerjack award (a three-foot tall box of Cracker Jack® caramel coated popcorn) that recognizes the employee for extraordinary service. It may be the result of a letter from a client or recommendations from other employees. By the way, the prize inside the box is money,” Tim Ward says. Senn Dunn also pays its employees well and has a strong benefits package and other fringe benefits. “Employees start with three weeks vacation right off the bat,” Gray says. “Because we work in teams, we have a program called ‘Free Friday’ that allows one team partner to leave early every other Friday as long as his or her work is completed.”
Tim Ward points out that the agency stresses the importance of education. As noted above, many of the people who joined the agency came from outside the insurance industry, so learning about insurance is key. “Not only do we mentor new employees,” he says, “but we also encourage them to learn more by paying 100% for all education, including travel. We have 12 CPCUs and six more studying for the designation. We have 27 CICs with 45 taking classes. We also are paying for two people who are going to college. Our controller, Danielle Hoversten, is getting an MBA. And Jessica Knight, our head of public relations, is taking PR designation courses that we pay for.” Senn Dunn is unusual in that it has a full-time public relations department that gets the agency’s message out to the local and national media, as well as to clients. The department is in charge of advertising, public relations, and seminars for clients. “We do at least six seminars a year,” Tim Ward says. The agency also understands the importance of good relations with its insurance company partners. The property/casualty marketing department includes one of the agency owners, Nicole Winkle, and three former carrier underwriters. Even the employee benefits people all have previous company experience. “All of these people maintained good relationships with the companies they once worked for,” Gray points out, “and Senn Dunn has benefited from this and from the fact that they know what the companies expect and are able to deliver on the first go-around. Our applications wind up on the top of the pile and that’s a real benefit to us and our clients.” One final, but extremely important point. Senn Dunn really is committed to remaining independent and wanted to make that clear to potential buyers. Larry Roland says, “We rewrote our noncompetes for producers so that they are null and void if the agency is sold. Suitors find out that all our producers can walk away with their business if the agency is purchased and they lose interest pretty quickly. Like I said before, we’re here for eternity.” Senn Dunn epitomizes the creativity and caring for people that is the strength of the Independent Agency System. It is for this reason that we are proud to recognize them as the Rough Notes Marketing Agency of the Month. * |
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